Is the modern American megachurch the Antichrist? Even worse than the Vatican? Too many preachers with no experience of metanoia and extasis from fasting and praying 40 days and 40 nights in the desert. We have forgotten that being 'born again' implies having experienced ego-death first. Hypocrisy, neurosis, depression and suicide are occupational hazards of modern American churchianity.
how about let's all read "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" by bishop John Selby Spong
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The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Purpose Driven Life, The)
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78 of 99 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars popular christianity, August 1, 2005
By
Joe Smith - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)
Rick
Warren really isn't a christian. He views christianity as a turnaround
CEO would a business that isn't profitable enough. He sees the problem
as being one of a bad message and a poor entertainment experience.
As
far as the message, he dumps the old message in favor of a new one: The
church is a business and the members are employees. The church leader
is the CEO. A chain of lay "managers" is created within the church and
each manager is given an employee handbook (the purpose driven life) to
train his group of direct reports in how to be effective church members.
It
works very well because the methods are adopted directly from the
day-to-day life in corporate america. In some churches, its hard to tell
the difference between the work-week and church because its all the
same thing now.
To motivate the employees, the church
focus is on making them feel good and useful. They are kept away from
concepts that might make them question their values or hurt their self
esteem. The goal of the church is to grow and their purpose in life is
to grow the church. Nothing else is required of them.
Worship
degenerates into a professional stage show and business leadership
seminar. This is very effective because it reduces the church to
something passive and harmless in people's lives. Its also something
they can put out of their mind during the rest of the week.
The
other new trend among Rick Warren and his sort of Church is that they
have figured out that its much easier to recruit people from existing
churches than it is to bring people to god. Its not easy to grow a
church to 10,000 from non-believers. It takes alot of work. But it takes
far less work to go recruiting in existing churches. The lure is that
Rick Warren has such easy answers. The extent of the law for Rick Warren
is "do whatever you want as long as you show up at church". There are
no obsolete commandments to get in the way of modern life, there are
only "purposes".
What would Rick Warren have done in
the time of Christ. Well, first he would have told Christ to "stay on
message" and to stop saying such confusing things. Then he would have
gone down to Jerusalem to negotiate a deal with the romans. The romans
were businesmen and certainly a deal could have been worked out. He
would have also had a sit down with Christ and explained to him that he
needed to act more like a CEO. He needed to settle down in Jerusalem and
trust his disciples to do the footwork. He needs to concentrate on the
CEO-type issues like politics, raising money for building projects and
growing the business.
Rick could have then gone down to
the temple and made a deal with the Pharisees. He could have pointed
out the possibilities for marketing the temple more effectively.
Businessmen should be invited in because as far as retail space goes,
the temple was top-tier. The temple was also virtually unused most of
the time and could have been opened up for plays, concerts and perhaps
even sporting events.
Think of it! If Christ had
understood Rick Warren's message, christianity could probably have taken
over the whole world without Christ having to die and all those
regrettable deaths in the first two centuries.
But
thats the point. Jesus Christ didn't come selling easy answers or
business solutions. He died because his following wasn't a mass
movement. In the end, the crowds and even his own followers deserted
him. The message was successful after not because it was easy and not
because it was hip, it was successful because it offered truth, hope and
meaning in a pagan world.
Rick Warren and many others
can fill Churches up with bodies but in the end not bring one person to
god. The ministry of Christ is not just signing up as many people as
possible to go to church for a few months and donate money to an endless
series of new building projects. Rick Warren is so obsessed with money,
growth and power that when I listen to him, there is nothing of the
message of Christ left in him or his words.
131 of 160 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars The Purpose-Driven Bandwagon, August 25, 2004
By
C. Gracey
I recently led a small-group study of The Purpose-Driven® Life. I started with no preconceived notions, but long before I reached the middle of the book, I was ready to throw it out the window. Only my commitment to the group kept me going to the end.
This book plays to those who are looking for easy answers, to those who believe the keys to living a faithful life can be reduced to a Purpose Driven® bumper sticker or bookmark . The book does contain much useful content, but it suffers from major problems, both substantive and stylistic. These include the following:
1. The author uses an alliterative bumper-sticker style of writing-"planned for God's pleasure", "formed for God's family"-that quickly becomes very annoying.
2. Content is repeated multiple times in an attempt to artificially fill a symbolic 40-day structure without 40 days' worth of material.
3. The book is highly commercial, with a trademark in its title and a bunch of offshoot products that the author does not hesitate to endorse throughout the book.
4. The author quotes Scripture out of context and massages Biblical content to suit his purposes. For example, to show how God can bring good out of evil, he says, "Ruth [a non-Jew]...broke the law by marrying a Jewish man" (p. 196), yet nowhere in the Book of Ruth is she accused of any wrongdoing, let alone "evil." (At the very least, it would be her Jewish husband who broke Jewish law, not Ruth.) This manipulation of the Bible means that conscientious readers cannot just trust the quotations and examples as presented. However, the tedious page-flipping required to read the endnotes means that many will quit checking the sources.
5. The use of different translations of the Bible is effective in bringing freshness to familiar passages and making Biblical language more accessible. However, the author relies too heavily on The Message, which is a paraphrase written from a particular viewpoint, rather than a true translation.
6. Christians who were baptized as infants and have grown in their faith without a specific conversion experience should take exception to the author's view that "the only way to get into God's family is by being born again into it (p. 118). Warren makes other sweeping theological statements that many faithful Christians will not agree with. It is ironic that many churches whose teachings Warren would seemingly reject are jumping on the Purpose Driven® bandwagon.
On the positive side, let me say that the book provoked great discussions in my college-age Sunday School class. In rejecting Warren's approach, these students have been forced to examine their own beliefs and the teachings of our denomination.
68 of 84 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars What on earth is Rick Warren teaching?, June 3, 2006
By
Theophilus - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)
The Purpose Driven Life is a sad reflection of the current state of American Christianity. It has little in common with traditional Protestantism of either the mainline or evangelical variety.
This is light reading. Basically it is a self-help book that uses Christian vocabulary to communicate a 40-day program of personal self-improvement. At best it is harmless. At worst people may mistake it for true Christianity.
If you must read this book, then at least balance it with a thoughtful critique, such as "More Than a Purpose" by Marshall Davis or "Reinventing Christianity" by Bob DeWaay.
